Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in medical support structures for use in medical environments. More particularly, the present invention relates to a multifunctional medical support structure for facilitating the streaming of refuse during medical procedures.
Background Art
Many medical support structures are known and used within healthcare environments. A wide variety of such structures have been developed for function-specific purposes, and include medical carts or trolleys developed to assist surgical or treatment procedures as disclosed in e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,842; carts or trolleys adapted to store and transport refuse as disclosed in e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,329; carts or trolleys adapted to facilitate laundry-related tasks as disclosed in e.g. GB 1322403; modular carts or trolleys developed to assist with one or more of the above examples, as disclosed in e.g. WO 2012024575; besides generic carts or trolleys adapted to store and transport all manner of medical and non-medical goods and/or refuse, as disclosed in e.g. FR 2837379.
The development of medical support structures, mobile or otherwise, continues apace, particularly under the influence or ever stricter statutory or regulatory imperatives in the respective fields of hygiene and environmental preservation.
In recent times, several outbreaks of hospital-acquired infection (HAI), also known as nosocomial infection and associated with viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens, have underlined the requirement to maintain all equipment within healthcare environments in the cleanest possible condition at all times, both to inhibit and mitigate bacteriological contamination, and many of the prior art medical trolleys exhibit aspects of shape and configuration which render their thorough cleaning difficult, because they include numerous angles, corners, blind apertures and the like that are difficult to reach with conventional cleaning implements.
In parallel to and partial association with the above, environmental regulations have been promulgated in respect of medical and non-medical waste, particularly that contaminated by potentially infectious bodily fluids, which require sorting of waste onsite according to waste type in a variety of medical and non-medical waste containers, for optimal processing both within the healthcare environment and, subsequently, beyond. Waste generated in healthcare procedure is a mixture of domestic-like waste which requires relatively simple and inexpensive processing for disposal; and clinical or hazardous waste which requires more complex, energy-dependent and onerous processing, typically incineration for disposal. Keeping both types of waste apart through streaming during their generation stops the domestic-like waste from becoming contaminated by the clinical or hazardous type of waste, and thus prevents more, originally non-clinical or hazardous, waste from having to be processed with the more complex procedure. Practically, such sorting typically involves transporting any contaminated equipment and waste away from a treatment site or operating table after use, to a refuse container located a short distance away for picking and streaming thereat during or after completing a procedure.
It is for instance well-known to dispose of “sharps” such as disposable scalpels, syringes and other implements with needles thereon and the like in “sharps containers” having a top aperture facilitating the dropping of sharps therein without touching the outside of the container, and otherwise forming a sealed unit designed to inhibit accidental spillage of medical needles and other instruments therein after their insertion. Such medical waste containers are subsequently disposed of with the medical waste inside, or reused after emptying and sterilisation, under strictly controlled conditions.
The medical support structures of the prior art are ergonomically suboptimal, since any sharps containers may only be rested thereon in a conventional manner, i.e. with their bottom surface abutting a top surface or underlying surface of the trolley with the sharps container upstanding orthogonally to that surface. As a practitioner or nurse disposes of medical waste during a procedure, there is accordingly a risk that a sharps container may be knocked over and, though not discharging its instrumental contents, may nevertheless spill any liquid waste present therein back out through the top aperture.
Accordingly, there is a requirement to improve the supporting of medical waste containers on a medical support structure located adjacent a healthcare or surgical treatment site, such as a surgical table or emergency treatment location, mitigating at least the above disadvantages of prior art carts and trolleys.